I feel like there’s two “25 years ago”s and one of them is the year 2000 where we had like computers and the internet and email and shit and the other one “25 years ago” is a mixture of 1978 and somewhere around 1800
Replies
-
25 years ago we were leaving long slurry messages on answering machines.
-
In 2000 texting had just started really working across carriers and popularizing. That said, I disagree. I think dating apps had alot more to do with the issue than texting.
-
You've Got Mail hit the movie theaters in ... 1998
-
Covid messed with everyone's sense of time, now you all live like I do.
-
🤣
-
before texting those guys just had whole secret families so like
-
lies
-
Of course we were, we just had to use T9 to do it.
The only reason marriages lasted longer a hundred years ago was that your cheating ass had to send it pony express.
-
You know why marriages worked 25 years ago? We all died of dysentery.
-
25 years ago is always 1975. people who think like this stopped aging mentally in 2000
-
When was the telephone invented?
-
Also 25 years ago the divorce rate was massively higher than it is now.
-
People still cheated then. Women were just more trapped then.
-
25 years ago I was catfishing a troll who sent a dick-pic to my roommate.
35 years ago, my film professor complimented my ability to spot memes, and online dating existed on BBS's.
These kids didn't start the fire.
-
Marriages used to "work" bc women didn't have the financial freedom to leave bad marriages. Now they do.
-
Look up “no fault divorce.” Women were just trapped in horrible marriages. Until the 1970s, they couldn’t even get their own credit cards.
-
and they used to work because divorce was literally a source of woman abuse.
-
Marriages used to work because women couldn't have a bank account or own property, so men could sleep around with almost no consequences.
-
Who is this "we" doing the harassing in the small hours? Leave your phone in another room overnight, people. If it's a studio flat, leave it in the bathroom; at least then you'll already be awake when you notice the text. Get an ⏰️ alarm clock.
-
When a Nokia 510 was the height of teen envy, and a Blackberry was de rigeur for those in suits.
-
Worst. Take. Ever.
-
One thing about a big, complex, diverse culture is that it actually contains people on different timelines. There WERE two "25 years ago" side by side, sometimes even in the same town. We still have people more than 25 years "behind" us, and we (meaning specifically me and spouse) are not "up to
-
Marriage didn't work back then either. The only difference was women and minorities had less rights. Men were caught cheating is my guess. If you don't want progress in life might as well end it now because that's what it means to be alive.
-
You text your ex? What a shame
-
In 1975 the divorce rate was roughly 40-45% In 2000 the divorce rate was roughly 41% In 2025 the projected divorce rate is roughly 40%
Roughly speaking, somebody is just telling on themselves.
-
"I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone." ― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
-
I'm not texting mine at any time of the day.
-
It would’ve been T9 texting, but texting was totally around then
-
I am deeply, deeply concerned that 25 years ago would apply to any point after 1985.
-
I’d also like to point out those of married for damn near 20 years graduated in the 90’s. But my mother definitely thinks 25 years ago is closer to 60’s for sure.
-
Also (and I'm only speaking for the UK here), the divorce rate is now quite a bit lower than it was 25 years ago.
-
thinking back to my ability to navigate relationships 25 years ago and nodding thoughtfully about how much more stable that young man was and how he would never have done any Totally Fuckin Insane Shit
-
This feels like GenX who never ever got over their parents' divorce.
-
Bro, I was sending dick pics
Uh, I mean.... Bro, I was sending very tasteful dick pics.
-
Women got some independence and don’t have to stay with worthless men. Well, for a little while longer…
-
The premise isn't even right.
-
My husband and I have been together for 35 years.
Their terrible marriage might just be their own damn fault.
-
Id suggest looking at the real reasons marriages "worked" in the past. 🙄 It wasnt the lack of phones.
-
I had multiple exes call and email me before 2k lol we didn’t need texting
-
no we had icq and irc doing all that sorry your not going back far enough the truth is no one bothers to get married anymore cause i can actually save more money not being married not buying a house not having kids etc
-
The number one reason for an increase in divorce is people now live longer 😕
-
25 years ago we were sending our exes messages on AIM. We were also texting. Cell phones were a thing in 2000.
-
It's just proving to be a generation showing how weak people are & if they had a brain, they'd learn how to control their emotions & pick a person who they'd actually love or really liked-- than people who fulfilled their parents' &/ or their own socialist bull s*, but until then tech will own them
-
25 years ago I was absolutely texting potential romantic partners on AIM. In-between playing Action Quake on DSL and listening to 'Deepest Bluest' by LL Cool J.
If I were married then this would have absolutely ended it
-
Hate to break it to you but marriages broke up A LOT before 2000, too.
-
25yrs ago in 2000, I didn't have a handheld device at my fingertips where I could send receive emails or check a worldwide database or surf other people's photos videos & what not in the middle of the night. Actually didn't get my 1st cellphone till 2002, & it couldn't text or check emails
-
Booty calls are as old as opposable thumbs in humanity.
-
25 years ago it was much easier to carry on an affair without getting caught
-
This is literally boomer shit.
-
Doesn’t this statement cut both ways? Technology makes it easier to stay in contact but doesn’t it also make it harder to hide infidelity?
-
Everything after my graduation from college, working, getting married, not working, having a baby, working, still working, and becoming a grandmother to my (now 43-year-old) baby's daughter ... was 25 years ago. That's my timeline and I'm sticking to it.
-
They don't know why marriages used to work. They don't even know when "used to" was.
-
Marriages used to "work" because women were property and financially controlled by their husbands; they couldn't even get a bank account without their husband's permission. Intimate Partner Violence was an expected way of managing conflict, and even joked about in popular media.
"Good ol' days"
-
I think the funniest part of this is that 25 years ago was pretty specifically when there was a whole Panic about divorce and the "50% of marriages end in divorce" thing came from.
It was actually much easier to cheat without cell phones or GPS or social media, turns out
-
You were less likely to get caught cheating. People kept this stuff quiet. People stayed in abusive relationships more because they couldn't afford to leave. There was a time you couldn't divorce for just any reason. You are sadly mistaken if you don't think people weren't cheating.
-
Keep in mind the US and Europe cell phone tech at this point was not the same.
EU had SMS in GSM from around 1995. (First was sent in 1992.)
-
My ex boyfriend from the early 90s was cheating just fine without chat or text..And I found out without those things too.
-
Considering divorce rates for women peaked in 1980, dropped by 1993 when SMS was invented, and is lower still now, I would hypothesize the author is full of it.
-
Never text an ex.
-
Our exes were not texting their new preferred love at 2.00 am either. Just saying. #BetterOffWithout
-
Maybe they mean 50-60 years ago…you know…the last time divorce rates were lower than now (probably due to no-fault divorce being illegal).
-
Also, the biggest divorce year on record was 1978
-
marriages don’t work anymore because wives refuse to churn their own butter
-
everything before 2010 is basically the stone age
-
25 years ago I was being an obnoxious little shit in online multiplayer games with people on the other side of the world. Now I'm an obnoxious adult shithead to people on the other side of the world, at least when they're being racist dickheads or billionaire simps.
-
Also people sent each other messages all the time by other means in the 1970s and 1800s. Also this has nothing to do with why marriages "used to work". By which we only mean divorces were less common.
-
Marriages work or don’t at the same rate they always have.
-
Marriages 'worked' because women were brought up to believe they were worth less than their husbands & put up with their crap
-
I was thinking 70s or before, too.
And I thought the punchline was they were stuck in loveless, possibly abusive marriages with no legal escape but now we have no fault divorce. But I guess it's just texting.
-
Wow. I never ever contacted an ex for ANY reason, once they were EX! When I'm done with anyone, I'm done, and I don't look back.
-
Marriages used to work? Bwaahhhsaashhaaa. Good one. How many people do you know — grown adults 25 or older — whose parents are divorced? Probably all of them.
-
Also, drunk dialing your ex has been around as long as the telephone. Every generation thinks they invented making bad decisions.
-
25 years ago my pos sperm donor was fucking other women while his wife was taking care of their two kids.
-
Marriages used to "work" because divorce used to be illegal for women to request without the husband's approval. So battered wives suffering spousal rape constantly just put up with it.
-
Life was nice before start phones? I only got one in 2014… glad I paid attention to and raised my kids w/o one 🤣🤣🤣
-
Bit unfair on 1978 tbh.
-
Im from that second era...
-
In the old days (the REAL old days, not the fucking nineties and early aughts) a woman’s alternatives to staying married were fleeing to start a new identity or going to an insane asylum. Or killing the fuck, if you were smarter than your local cops and forensic science was primitive.
-
I've had more than a few "exes" over my life but honestly I only really think about 2 of them & one of those raped me
-
Apropos of nothing, divorce rates have been on the decline since the 90s. I guess that's another thing we pesky Millennials killed 😂
-
I love that You've Got Mail happened before 2000.
-
What is this delusional crap? Marriages weren't working 25 years ago either.
-
The actual truth is more like
"You know why marriages lasted 50 years ago and don't last now? It's because a lot more people were taking a lot of abuse without having the option to leave"
-
Controversial opinion: some people need to get divorced and they should get divorced. It’s better for all of us and them if people who want a divorce get a divorce.
-
History began with Britney Spears. Before that it was caves and smoke signals.
-
My friend’s dad left his mom mid 90s for a woman he met in an AOL chat room. I don’t think texting is the real problem here.
-
Or social media
-
and the marriage/divorce rates have been pretty lateral in a broader sense from 2000 to present
-
a lotta people in the replies here reading "25 years ago" in that second sense
-
Honestly the caption is better than the meme
-
Boomers are hilarious, Facebook is a cesspool and contains every single one of the dumbest memes on the planet
-
You called them long distance like Tom Waits, so you had to really want it
-
Also women used to have to stay in bad marriages by law
-
Really good point. Zuckerberg fucked with time and our concept of years
-
my grandma told me one of the reasons she left my grandpa was because he visited a woman that he liked from high school. the woman wanted nothing to do with him and my grandma found out about it. This was late 50s, early 60s.
-
I first remember feeling this when it came out that Paula Deen had used the n-word, circa 2013, and people said "oh it was 30 years ago" like that meant 1950 when in fact it meant 1980s and in the 1980s we DEFINITELY knew not to use the n-word
-
This is such bullshit. It's not the technology that is aiding the cheating, it's the asshole doing the cheating. Phones haven't changed that.
-
Seems most americans never got past 1776. That's probably a good thing. I'm not sure they are mature enough for technology like computers and cell phones....
-
Looking at the stats it appears marriage works better since 2000: www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dv...
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/national_marriage_divorce_rates_00-16.pdf
-
I was there, Gandalf 25 years ago we were totally texting our exes at 2am. Mobile phones were already ubiquitous. Even if "it's only for emergencies" was still a common excuse among people looking for an absolution for the sin of owning one.
-
And there is this too: www.amazon.com/MARRIAGE-FAB...
-
"My faithfulness is based entirely of the whims of the progress of communication software" is certainly a thing one could tell people about one's self
-
this is one of the most prescient things i've read in a long time
-
I hate how people are more concerned about protecting marriage than they are fixing the problems with it.
The problem isn’t that we aren’t marrying as long as we use to, the problem is marriage still leads to abuse, rape and death.
If we addressed the real issues, people would want to be married.
-
They didn’t work 25 years ago either, the difference was the men would beat the shit out of the women and they wouldn’t be able to leave
-
And divorce rates were HIGHER in the 70s and 80s.
-
relationships between people are just changing. Humans form attachment by proximity and exposure, and now you are much more able to choose who you're around most often. You meet way more people and form close attachments with them. Open relationships and polyamory are the natural result
-
I think 25 yaers ago, I was conpiling my exes at 2am..
-
I still think the 90’s were 10 years ago
-
Absolutely, especially if one were to look up divorce rates in the 1990s versus the 2020s.
-
i feel like people radically overestimate how effective coercive marriage arrangements were in the distant past. husbands and wives killed each other all the time, or one would just...leave. you could just do that back in the day and people did it frequently.
-
Scary to think that Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone just 26 years ago while in a wagon crossing the Oregon Trail.
-
Oh no, but we were calling them and meeting up with them.So try again.
Redirecting...
-
25 years ago I was 6, it was still "the 90's" part of "the 2000's" and the world, like myself was innocent.
-
... you remember when we didn't have cellphones? Those were the Halcyon Days, before infidelity was invented.
-
😆😆😆 same!!
-
We had to write them salicious missives by candlelight in time for the morning post . But we were doing it. oh yea. And how.
-
Whereas "10 years ago" is somehow 1996 specifically, instead of 2015
-
Are they saying that marriages don't work because of lack of sleep?
-
IKR! I get so MANY texts!
-
I was on AIM with my exes at 2am 20 years ago
-
And, in times of the latter, they just beat the wife and told her to shut up and deal with it. Reminiscent of MAGA's dream.
-
Bro never heard of a booty call?
-
I've just realised I send my first "up up?" txt over 20 years ago 💀💀
-
25 years ago this meme might have at least made some sense XD
-
No. It was because women were forced to stay in a marriage, no matter what was happening to her.
-
Every year on my parents wedding anniversary my mother would go on and on about how her mother in law said their marriage wouldn't last. She'd always end it saying, "and now that b*tch is dead" and it was clear she stayed married out of spite. They were horrid but stayed married because of spite.
-
Even I had a mobile and computer in 2000. They got me into all sorts of scrapes 🫣
-
Shit I had this whole response typed out until I saw it said 25 years ago and it just registered that 25 years ago was 2000. fuuuck
-
It feels like that because you probably saw the same things being posted in the year 2000. Wash rinse repeat.
-
When a text cost a decent wodge of pennies if they were on a different network so you had to really weigh up if that sext was worth it. 😬
-
Josh Gondleman has a comedy bit about how the youth today call out the 90s as "the 20th century" and they're not wrong but they are flattening a lot of lived experiences
-
No babe, the divorce rate in 2000 was HIGHER than today.
-
I had a phone 25 years ago but not 26 years ago so I guess there's a window that keeps moving. Note: I was not texting my ex as soon as I got one though I do admit to a little light Friends Reunited searching in the late 90s.
-
Also, marriages are actually becoming MORE successful. Owing to the fact that people are getting married older than they used to and so are more likely to be more stable and mature.
-
yeah you messaged your ex on ICQ at 2am because a text cost ten cents, also the divorce rate in 2000 was extremely high lmao
-
Also, marriages were going to shit 25 years ago.
-
Also haven’t marriage rates stabilized re: Divorce and separations since, like, the 90s?
-
-
25 years ago, texting your ex cost like $14
-
The year 2000 was peak SMS era 🇫🇮
I learned to type on my button phone under my desk or in my pocket so I could do it on the sly.
K = press 5 twice etc.
-
There's a non-zero chance this image has been reposted for so long that when it first appeared "25 years ago" actually was 1983
-
Did you not have cellphones in the US in the '90s? Over here we were certainly texting people, for better or worse
-
Lol does anyone actually believe that marriages “used to work” in the United States?
-
"You know how I tell on my own moral failings and refusal to move into the future? Memes. 25 years ago we had Speak 'n Spells."
-
I don't want to text any of my exes. I guess I'm funny that way.
-
25 years ago is definitely 1977
-
The divorce rate has been plummeting since 1980.
-
lowest divorce rate in 50 years lol
-
This is such bullshit.
-
It’s 2002 and she’s trying her best people
-
I know people who go, “Twenty years ago — that was 1980, right?”
-
It was because grandma couldn’t leave an abusive husband.
-
its probably because divorce wasn’t legal
-
I still hear radio stations with a "Best Music of 80s, 90s, and Today" format, and that "today" is doing a lot of work.
-
We had to get up, light a candle, fill an ink quill, write our prose quickly and slip the envelope in the Mail with no one else noticing. And the mailbox was at the top of a hill
-
To be fair, it took forever to carry out a texting affair on one of these things
-
25 years ago we weren't all texting our exes at 2 AM. We were all 12 years old, and 2 AM was FAR past our bedtime.
-
Someone has never experienced ICQ and it shows.
-
I tend to think the flaw is marriage itself. The origins are really based on solidifying family alliances, securing inheritances, regulating property rights... It's a tool of The State, not Cupid Also, how is anyone supposed to have a healthy relationship when many are just focused on base survival?
-
Lol www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resour...
